The orbit of my falconry is a long ellipse, mostly hidden from sight or thought from March to August, except for the minor husbandry of a molting hawk. I feed Ernie in the afternoon and bring him inside at night to escape the mosquitoes and the raccoons. He bathes and preens and naps all day, unhurried and apparently as unconcerned about the approach of hunting season …
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Shiri Pics: Sequence
Riss runs, and Shiri shoots a series reminiscent of Eadweard Muybridge:
The woman has no shame …
I love this poster that The Countryman Press created to promote my new book, so I’m posting it here to show it off. In the original image that serves as the background, there is actually a slash of rainbow-colored light escaping from the cloud cover over my sheep herd as they graze along the Wind …
Two Society Photos…
Really! I think of myself as a sort of an amused amateur taxonomist of class, as I am of biology. You don’t have to be a snob to be interested in class; despite Americans’ common nervousness about the subject, it exists, like evolution, whether you deny it or not. Someone who stands a little outside …
Smoky Sunset
Luckily we haven’t had any more major wildfires for the last couple of months. Last week though, we had a lot of haze in the air from smoke that had blown in from fires in Idaho and Oregon. That made for some beautiful spooky sunsets like this one.
Shiri Pix
Quote
From the Medieval French poet Francois Villon: Ce monde n’est perpetuel Quoy que pense riche pillart; Tous sommes soubz mortel coustel…” (The world is not everlasting/ despite what rich robbers think/ We are all beneath a mortal blade…)
And Cat’s Sheep!
Also just out: Cat Urbigkit’s Shepherds of Coyote Rocks, her first adult book, a distillation and amplification of what you have come to love here and a leap forward for her. This is the most nuanced and intelligent defense of the traditional pastoral life in print, by a writer who lives it and has heard …
McIntyre’s Snow Leopard’s Tale
At VERY long last Thomas McIntyre’s Snow Leopard novel is out. I have waited longer for it than I have ever for any other book. Long story… First, let me quote my own recommendation– I pared it down to say exactly what I wanted to: “McIntyre’s tale may have predecessors, but it is unique. I …
Flyover Country?
Thesis: talk is as good in Magdalena, or the Spur, as anywhere. It was Sissy Olney, fourth generation rancher and lion hunter, who on seeing me reading Sybille Bedford in that bar, asked me if she were the one who had written “that big fat book about Aldous Huxley”. Joel Becktell is a world- class …